Install

Requirements

The core components of scim-lib generally depends on NOTHING: if you have a c++ compiler, you would be able to compile it. However should you prefer Gtk GUIs, then Gtk2 is required. scim-lib comes with several config modules, one of which is gconf config module: you would need gconf (which is depend on other Gnome2 packages) to compile and make use of it.

(If you prefer KDE/Qt GUIs, then you would like to try [[Software.ScimKDE][skim|Software.ScimKDE][skim]].)

Install scim-lib from source

There are two choices to install scim-lib from source code: One is using released tarballs, the other is checking out from !CVS. The releases are relatively well tested and more stable, but may be a little outdated. The !CVS checkout is very bleeding-edge, but it's in heavy development, so more error-prone.

Install from releases

After downloading and uncompressing the released tarballs:

$ ./configure --prefix`/usr --sysconfdir`/etc
$ make
# make install

If you don't use options in configure, SCIM is going to be installed in /usr/local.

If you prefer KDE, you can checkout [[Software.ScimKDE][skim|Software.ScimKDE][skim]], the procedure is just the same as above, you only need to replace scim-lib with skim.

Gentoo

All the SCIM packages are included in the official portage, so all you have to do is

# emerge scim

If you want Pinyin (Simplified Chinese) input method, please emerge scim-chinese; If table based (including Simplified/Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Russian etc.) input method is prefered, please emerge scim-table; If you are the users of [[Software.uim][UIM]], then scim-uim (and/or scim-m17n) is (are) what you want.

(Do not forget to specify the ACCEPT_KEYWORDS"~x86"= before you emerge anything in SCIM if the latest versions are desired)

If -gtk (and/or -gnome) is included in your USE variable, or KDE/Qt is prefered, then probably you should also emerge [[Software.ScimKDE][skim]].

Configure locales

For some versions of the locales package, you should edit the file (as user root)

/etc/locale.gen

and for at least locales version 2.3.18, you should edit such a file as

/var/lib/locales/supported.d/zh

(or "/jp", depending on the language) to include a locale and encoding appropriate for your purposes. For example, to use Simplified Chinese with Unicode encodings, insert the line

zh_CN.UTF-8 UTF-8

See /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED for a list of locales supported on your system.

Then create and install the locales in your system by running

locale-gen

See man locale for more information on locales.

Environment

If your system is set up for a language other than the target language, an application to be used with SCIM will need to run in an environment set up for the target language.

For example, in a terminal running the bash shell, type

export XMODIFIERS=@im=SCIM
export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.UTF-8

Now if SCIM is running, you can run, say, gedit from this terminal session, and use SCIM within that application to type Simplified Chinese.

To use the SCIM input methods in GTK applications (and in Gnome generally)

export GTK_IM_MODULE=scim

To use the SCIM input methods in Qt applications (KDE desktop)

export QT_IM_SWITCHER=imsw-multi
export QT_IM_MODULE=scim

Of course, one can simplify this process by writing scripts that set the environment and run the desired application at once. For example, put the following in a file named "chinese", and make the file executable, and put it in your PATH.